Million Dollar Handle Read online

  She looked disappointed. “I was keyed up for a bigger number than that.”

  “Mrs. Geary, some arithmetic. Three thousand times ninety, times two—the winter meeting, the summer meeting. Five hundred and forty thousand. Forty thousand of that for Billy. A quarter of a million for me, a quarter of a million for you. Tax exempt. Year after year.”

  He was speaking evenly. He still hadn’t tasted his drink, as though he suspected it might have been doctored by some of the additives he had just told her about. Mrs. Geary was sitting far forward, flushed and excited.

  “I must say it all sounds very plausible. What do you need from me besides my blessing?”

  “It can’t be done as long as Dee stays as kennelmaster. He’s too much of a slob. He’d spoil it in a week.”

  “Then that’s our first problem, because Max is definitely not going to fire him.”

  “Transfer him. Or he’s old enough to retire—give him a drinking pension.”

  She shook her head. “Hopeless. They’re old drinking buddies. They go all the way back.”

  “This would be a way to keep the track and stave off that real estate thing.”

  “You don’t understand about Max. He really believes what he says about honest racing. I don’t know what he’d do if he found out Dee was switching urine samples—maybe just warn him. But I think if you checked you’d find that happened on one of the nights when Max was away. If I could arrange this, I would, but I’d be scared even to mention it. He’d blow me out of the room.”

  “He can’t really believe in that honesty crap.”

  “He does, though. Once the dogs are on the track they only know one way to run, and that’s all-out. Greyhounds are more honest than people.” She waved her hand. “I’ve heard it so often.”

  “If I talked to him—”

  “No, Ricardo. He has a reputation with newspapermen, people like that—friendly, happy, easygoing. That’s his public face, and of course he’s in public most of the time. In private, he can be very mean. I’m sorry to say he’s one of the old Miamians who’s not happy about the Cuban emigration. You’d be off the payroll so fast…”

  She stood up to get ice. “You realize I’m tremendously excited by the idea. I think it’s time I had some money of my own. If we could think of a way to get Dee fired—”

  “No point in that unless I get the promotion.”

  “Aren’t there days when he’s too drunk to notice what you’re doing? Couldn’t you work around him?”

  “Too risky, too sloppy. It’s bad enough now to have to work around that camera.”

  He saw no reason to tell her that he was already doing what she suggested, speeding up or slowing down an occasional dog, and why cut the management in on it? But this way was haphazard and unsatisfactory. And he had to pass up some of the best opportunities. When he did have a chance to use the new medicines, as in the opening race that afternoon, he could feel a temptation to increase the dosage, or to hit all eight dogs and bet big. That was what he was trying to avoid. All he wanted to do was put it on a business basis. Out of the total handle, twelve percent to the track, five percent to the state, half of one percent to Ricardo Sanchez.

  “You look crushed,” she said. “I’m sorry. I wish I could hold out hope, but after twenty-three years of marriage I know the man pretty well. Plus the fact that—well, you’re very good looking, and Max is—”

  He looked up at that. “What do you think we ought to do, then?” he said after a considerable moment. “They won’t charge us any more if we use the bed.”

  “So tonight won’t be a total waste.”

  “Something like that.”

  He had chicken fat on his fingers, but he thought it would look too cold-blooded if he went to the bathroom to wash. She touched his face lightly. He put his head against the front of her sweater, pulling her in. Was that right? It seemed awkward. He worked the sweater out of the slacks, and kissed her stomach, wondering how he was going to get out of this.

  His hands were as heavy as rocks. After a time she began to move in his arms, pushing forward against his mouth.

  Then she broke away from him and went silently to the bathroom. He gulped the vodka martini like a prescription, fixed the bed, took off his clothes, and fidgeted.

  When she came out of the bathroom, naked, they met and kissed, and he thought for a moment it was going to be all right.

  But it turned out to be impossible for him. There had been too much talk about money. She was surprised, because it didn’t fit the scenario, but she was nice about it, in fact extremely nice, almost motherly, although her procedures were anything but.

  “This never happened before,” he said in a low voice, without adding that he had never before been in bed with a woman her age.

  “Do you want me to work some more?”

  He turned away, his forearm over his eyes. “Not now.”

  “I’ve been very much—on edge,” she said. “I’m sure you noticed. I’ve felt very hollow inside. With Max and me, for a number of years, there hasn’t been anything. A couple of men I play golf with, my age and older. It never involved a motel. I was too aggressive. I’m sorry.”

  He sat up. “You were too—no, it’s the other way around. The whole thing is my fault. I planned it.”

  “Planned what?”

  “The accident. Everything. Your car didn’t make that blood. I cut myself before you hit me. But I didn’t know you’d be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “A person.”

  That wasn’t quite it, but it was the best he could do. Without her clothes, she wasn’t the wife of the president of Surfside. If she had been flabby or bony, he would have had no problem. The contrary was true. She was one of the nicest-looking women he had seen.

  They talked for an hour, needing no help from the vodka bottle. He began to think they should try again, but she told him to sleep and she would visit him the first thing in the morning.

  He was asleep when she knocked. He let her in. He was erect, they were both happy to see, and he stayed that way. It was satisfactory to them both. He went out afterward for coffee and rolls, and they stayed in bed until he left for the track. She was a big surprise to Ricardo. There was something to be said for age and experience, after all.

  They met frequently after that, and the lovemaking not only continued good, it became better. They hardly ever talked about his plan, because they both had come to accept the fact that nothing could be done about it as long as her husband was alive and running the track.

  Chapter 4

  Michael Shayne, the well-known private detective, was coming back to Miami after a nationwide chase that had ended in a twenty-four-hour vigil in the hills above San Francisco. He was wearing the same clothes he had started out in. His only luggage was an over-the-shoulder flight bag.

  As he came out of the terminal, a voice said, “There he is.”

  A photographer stepped in front of him and began taking pictures, which surprised Shayne; he hadn’t expected the California action to make the Miami papers. Two Miami Beach detectives closed in.

  “Glad we didn’t miss you, Mike,” one of them said, a fat-faced veteran named Jamieson. “Painter wants to talk to you.”

  “I hardly ever talk to Painter if I can help it.” Shayne and Peter Painter, the Miami Beach Chief of Detectives, had made all kinds of trouble for each other over the years, and Shayne usually tried to stay out of the pompous little man’s jurisdiction.

  “Nevertheless,” Jamieson said.

  “I haven’t shaved in three days,” Shayne said, rubbing his jaw. “I need a little maintenance.”

  “It has to be right away, that’s what the man told us. He’s having a press conference, and he wants to be fair, give you a chance to deny everything first.”

  “What did I do now?”

  “And he went on to say,” Jamieson said, “don’t answer that kind of question. He wants to be the one to break it to you.”


  “What did he say after that?”

  “To use the handcuffs if we had to.”

  “Yeah, that would make a better picture.” He called to the photographer, “Do you know what this is all about?”

  The photographer grinned. “Just that this time Painter must think he really has something.”

  “I’m too tired to argue,” Shayne said. “My car’s in the garage. I’ll follow you in.”

  Jamieson said quickly, “No, Mike. No. You’re coming with us. He wants to make sure you actually get there. And you know he’s got a point, based on experience.”

  A Beach patrol car was parked ahead of the taxis, the kind with a grating separating the front and back seats, and no inside handles on the rear doors. Jamieson’s partner opened a door, playing it broadly. He bowed and swept a welcoming arm toward the car’s interior.

  “Be our guest.”

  Shayne stood still. Two uniformed sheriff’s deputies were nearby, watching. That made a total of four, not counting the photographer, who was presumably neutral.

  “Welcome to Miami,” Shayne said.

  As he ducked to get in, the photographer took another picture. The detectives used their siren to get through the Forty-second Avenue lights and onto the expressway. Now that Shayne was successfully caged, they were even less talkative. Jamieson said only one thing, as they came off the causeway into Miami Beach. “Want a piece of advice?”

  “Not from you, Jamieson.”

  “Naturally you’re going to do it your way.”

  “It’s too late to change.”

  The detectives posted themselves on the sidewalk before releasing Shayne, and kept close beside him as they walked him upstairs, into Painter’s office. The walls were crowded with pictures of the chief of detectives having his hand shaken by politicians, making arrests, posing with entertainers at the Beach hotels. The man himself remained planted in his chair, his hands spread on the desk as though ready to spring at his visitor. Before going into police work he had been a Marine captain, and he had kept the manner. He had put on some extra weight around the middle, but he kept it sucked in hard and sat very straight, to make the most of what height he had. His executive armchair was cranked up as high as it would go.

  “They didn’t have to shoot you to get you to come in and answer a few questions. You’re mellowing, Shayne.”

  Shayne sat down. “I’m trying to think what crimes I’ve committed lately. I can’t remember any in Miami Beach.”

  Painter squinted at him. “How does extortion sound?”

  “Serious.”

  “I believe it’s serious.” Painter checked the time and said briskly, “I’ve set aside fifteen minutes, and I don’t want to keep our media friends waiting. I’m hoping to make the six o’clock news. Suppose you start by telling me why Max Geary paid you that money.”

  “Geary?” Shayne said, puzzled. “What money?”

  “Now here we’ve been talking for exactly thirty seconds, and you’re already asking questions. This time I’m doing the asking. What did you have on him?”

  “On Geary? Past tense? You mean he’s dead?”

  “Yes, you’ve been away, haven’t you. Very conveniently timed. If you really don’t know, he totalled his car at two o’clock Tuesday morning. The blood test showed straight bourbon. He was starting home from the track and just made it out of the parking lot, went off the cloverleaf and piled up on Alton Road. Made a very nice bonfire. They got the foam truck from the track, but he was pretty well singed by the time they got him out.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Shayne said somberly. “I used to like Max. He’s been getting a little hard to take lately, boozed up most of the time. I’ve never been one of his regular customers. I never had him for a client.”

  “No, I wouldn’t say this was the regular detective-client relationship.” Painter gave his narrow mustache a quick flick in opposite directions. “Now I want to hear you say it. You never took a penny from him, legally or otherwise. You don’t know what I’m talking about. You let him buy you a drink now and then, but that’s as far as it went.”

  “It seems to me I usually paid for the drinks. Aren’t you forgetting something? You haven’t given me the warning.”

  “You don’t need that, for Christ’s sake. But all right. You’re entitled to have a lawyer present, and anything you say may be used against you. Now answer the goddamn question.”

  “This isn’t boot camp, Petey. Look at it from my side of the desk. You went to the trouble of finding out where I was and what plane I was coming in on. You sent two guys out to grab me, and you made sure a photographer was there to get a picture of Mike Shayne being busted, or of Mike Shayne breaking somebody’s jaw. Now you tell me to waive my constitutional right to keep silent until I’m confronted with some evidence. Go to hell.”

  Painter’s lips tightened, but he tried to speak evenly. “What happened the last time I asked you to come in and talk about something? You were gone for four days. And when you finally surfaced, you had the guy we were supposed to be looking for. You made us look bad, and not by any means for the first time, I’d like to point out.”

  “If we’re thinking about the same case, there was a deadline and I couldn’t stop to explain it to you in advance. Petey, come on. Extortion is a bad label to hang on a private detective. It might give my clients the idea that it’s a mistake to trust me. You’ve got something connecting me with Geary, or with the dog track. It has to be more than a rumor but it can’t be much more or you’d be convening a grand jury. What is it? If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll try to catch your press conference on TV.”

  He leaned forward to get up. Painter clamped his lips more tightly together, took a small notebook out of the central drawer, and spun it across the desk.

  It was so small it fitted easily into the palm of Shayne’s hand. The leather cover was charred, but it is hard to burn a tightly closed notebook, and this one had come out of the fire in time for the writing on the inside to be legible. Shayne turned the pages slowly. There was nothing on them but a long list of names, dollar amounts and dates, going back six years.

  “You found this on Geary?”

  Painter was watching him closely. “Not right away. He was wearing it in a kind of money belt, around the upper part of his leg, under his underwear. Also two folded thousand-dollar bills, emergency money, and a safe-deposit-box key. The book was tucked back in under his balls, so it wouldn’t show. Skip the early pages. Start at the end and read backward.”

  The last entry had been made the previous weekend, the name of a Miami lawyer against the sum of $1500. A flake of charred paper drifted to the floor.

  “Tiny writing,” Painter observed. “If you’re having trouble I can give you a magnifying glass.”

  Shayne turned a page, and his own name came out at him: Mike Shayne, $3000. He met Painter’s eyes. His old adversary gave him a tight smile.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. Read on. You’re in distinguished company.”

  Shayne returned to the book. He recognized most of the names that recurred at regular intervals. Before Christmas every year there were a dozen that didn’t appear at other times. There were a few police officers among the regulars, the majority leader at Tallahassee, several other Senators and representatives, a zoning official, a building inspector, the head of a Teamsters local. Some of the earlier Shayne entries gave his full name, some only his initials.

  “This is dynamite,” he observed. “Are you in it?”

  “I am very definitely not in it,” Painter snapped. “That’s a payoff list. I’ve never taken a payoff in my life.”

  “Maybe that’s what makes people think you’re a little inhuman,” Shayne said. “How far have you got with this? Who’s Wolf? Five thousand.”

  “He used to be the state’s tax man at Surfside. From the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering. Most of the Tallahassee people have something to do with allocating racing dates. There’s an ex-director of the Board of
Business Regulation, a chief inspector, some racing judges. There are also a few cops there, I’m sorry to say, and one of the things I’m going to announce is their immediate suspension without pay.”

  “Ben Wanamaker? Is that the guy on the News?”

  “Sports editor. How far back have you got? Turn the page.”

  “Tony Castle!”

  “I thought you’d be interested. For eight thousand, and that’s annual. He’s not supposed to have any mainland connections anymore. That’s what I get from the FBI, and I still like to think they know what they’re talking about.”

  Castle’s true name was Castalogni. At one time he had been an important figure in the Miami criminal world, but as a result of an investigation run by Tim Rourke of the News, using leads provided by Shayne, he had considered it prudent to get out of the country. The payments from Geary had started the following year. He owned a casino in the Bahamas, and as far as Shayne knew, he had never been back.

  “And what does Castle do, if anything,” Painter said, “to earn that eight thousand a year? It’s one of the things I’m hoping you’ll tell me.”

  “It baffles me, Pete. But I seem to have my own problems here.”

  “You do, don’t you?” Painter said with immense satisfaction. “A little crude, Shayne. Some of those teenage fans of yours are going to be painfully surprised.”